When we think about the year-end holidays, books often are at the center of our memories. Maybe we received a special book as a gift, and it became a cherished memento. Or maybe we read a book about the holidays each year, as a treasured part of our celebrations. We decided to share some of our holiday book memories with you — and in turn, some of you shared yours with us. For that we are grateful. To paraphrase from one of the most familiar of holiday stories, happy holidays to all, and to all a good season.

Tribune staffers' memories

Maggie Walker, photo editor: Forty-nine years later I still have "The Night Before Christmas," a gift from Lauri Gabrielson, who drew my name in our third-grade gift exchange. I am still enchanted by the colorful, detailed and old-fashioned illustrations by Catherine Barnes. I read through it whenever it catches my eye, not only at Christmas.

Julia Keller, critic: It was the smallest thing under the tree that year: a skinny, sky-blue paperback with the distinctly unpromising title "One Hundred and One Famous Poems." The humble book made me feel as if I'd won the Naughty Child Sweepstakes. Turns out that Santa knew what he was doing, after all. I loved that book. I have the book to this day — it's at my elbow even as I write this. Santa wears many hats, but for a certain 10-year-old growing up in Huntington, W.Va., the most important one was this: literary critic.

Pam Becker, editor: My earliest memories of Hanukkah are intimately bound up with a slender children's book we called, simply, the Hanukkah book. I remember the warm glow of the flickering menorah candles on the faces of my sisters and parents as we took turns nervously lighting the candles, then reading the prayers spelled out phonetically in the book. I had thought the book long gone but recently discovered that one of my sisters still has it. The real title? "Chanuko: The Festival of Lights" by Sophia N. Cedarbaum.

Courtney Crowder, editing assistant: On Christmas morning, 2002, I awoke to find the small essay collection "Holidays on Ice" by David Sedaris peeking out of my stocking; little did I know as I skimmed the pages that this book would come to define the holidays for me. Each story drips with sarcasm and disdain for the season. Being a teenager who felt family time was as fun as getting one's fingernails pulled off, I stifled laughter while devouring every word. Since then I have come to appreciate family and our unique holiday customs much more, but I still enjoy Sedaris' biting wit.

Denise Joyce, editor: My two children grew up with Chris Van Allsburg's "The Polar Express." For years we would rediscover it each Christmas, and the book's striking illustrations and the wonder of that magical journey never failed to captivate us. But even then, the book's message about the silencing of that small bell and the attendant loss of something special seemed bittersweet and tugged at my heart.

Barbara Mahany, reporter: The book whose first line I memorized long ago was Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory." Those might have been the very pages that pulled me deep into the spell of the power of storytelling. As a young girl, I ached with the poignancy of that story about a young boy and his eccentric aunt in the Deep South, as they went about the business of their annual autumnal fruitcake-making. My heart swelled for their uncanny deep connection, two lonely hearts who delighted in each other in ways no one understood. Except for the reader, who was in on the secret, and longed to join in.

Dorothy B. Hofstetter, editor: My parents went from having no grandchildren to having three in 1985 — my twins were born in July and my niece was born in October. From that first Christmas on, Poppy (my dad) read "The Night Before Christmas" to David, Christine and Jenna. When Poppy and Grammy no longer could travel back to Chicago from Florida for Christmas, Poppy would be put on speaker-phone (in the days before Skype) on Christmas Eve to read the beloved poem.

Mary Schmich, columnist: On Christmas Eve when I was 5, my mother waked me up to say that Santa Claus had come and gone. I stumbled into the family room, dimly lit by the Christmas tree. And there it lay, the only thing I had asked for: a book. It had a pale blue cover and was, I think, about an angel. I loved it so much that a few days later, riding in the car, I joyously held it out the window — and the wind snatched it from my hand. My beloved Christmas book was lost to me forever, and that may be why, though I would love many books later in my life, I've never loved one like that one, which I also secretly knew was from my mother.

Amy Guth, social media manager: The wintry holiday time of year brings to mind the stories in Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories." Though most of the stories are silly and fun ("The Mixed-Up Feet and the Silly Bridegroom," for example), it is the title character's touching story that is called to mind most clearly this time of year. Despite the hardship little Aaron and his beloved goat, Zlateh, encounter on a wintry night during would-be preparation for Hanukkah, the story of their tender friendship and happy triumph is a heartwarming holiday read.

Christopher Borrelli, reporter: The first book I remember getting for Christmas that seemed like a real book, with thin pages that were not authored by Richard Scarry or Dr. Seuss, was "Norman Rockwell's Christmas Book," put together by his daughter Molly. To this day I don't entirely understand the point of giving people Christmas-themed presents on Christmas day — by which time a lot of people are ready to move on — but even then, at 6 years old, I remember flipping though the large pages and feeling like this was something to keep and appreciate. It didn't have any focus, aside from the holiday itself. Which meant there were, of course, Rockwell's most famous Christmas scenes, but also reproductions of Christmas cards, recipes from Fannie Farmer, song lyrics, poems from Robert Frost, a story from Langston Hughes. This was the 1970s, before every holiday reference came with a side of snark, and I assumed the rustic, copacetic Christmas mirage the book presented was the way that the holiday was supposed to be celebrated. I still have the book — it was lovingly reissued in 2009 — and though I know better now, I wish didn't.

Matthew Wood, online producer: When I was a little kid, my mom made it a tradition to read "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" to me on or around Christmas every year. It didn't seem like the holidays until we had gone through the rite of reading about the awful Herdman family and their hijacking of the church Christmas pageant in Barbara Robinson's children's book. Even when I was older, I would still grab the tattered book on a snowy weekend afternoon around the holidays and read it again to myself, even though I already had many of the passages more or less memorized.

Renee Enna, editor: The holiday "treasure book" I most cherished as a young girl was the colorful, photo-centric "Betty Crocker's Cooky Book." The Holiday chapter was carefully perused every November, with its recipes for candy cane cookies, spritz and (my favorite at the time) chocolate peppermint cookies and much more. The recipes and the book defined my holiday through much of my teens, and taught me how to bake. This book still has an avid following; a vintage facsimile version was reissued several years ago. However, I still have my battered and worn copy from way-back-when. I don't cook from it much anymore, but it has earned a permanent spot on the shelf.

William Hageman, reporter: I'm pretty sure it was Christmas of 1960. My parents gave me a copy of "The Go Go Chicago White Sox," a book written by the Tribune's Dave Condon that recapped the Sox's 1959 American League championship season (and subsequent soul-crushing loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series). I read it cover to cover, of course, and the next spring and summer it was usually with me wherever I was. I still have it, minus the dust jacket, and pretty weather-beaten.

Nara Schoenberg, reporter: It was Christmas break, there was a fire in the fireplace, and I was about 12 years old. I got out "Jane Eyre," reached the sad part, and burst into tears. I don't know if it was the moment, the book, or tween hormones, but I just sobbed and sobbed. I felt very grand and tragic to have been so affected by a book, and maybe I was. I've cried at books since, but never like that.

Judy Hevrdejs, reporter: Books have always been (and remain) part of the holiday gift-giving experience with family and friends. Often it's an old out-of-print book that someone has mentioned in the previous year and I've tracked down, a book cherished for the memories they prompt (though not necessarily holiday; usually of a place lived, a city visited). Of course, a recitation of "The Night Before Christmas" is always part of the holiday ritual, though I never remember a book — just a parent or an older child who had memorized the story several generations back, and passed it on.

Lauren Lucchese, online producer: My grandpa hated to read Dr. Seuss — he struggled with reading the rhymed verse out loud — but much to his chagrin, when I was younger Dr. Seuss books were all I was interested in hearing. Around Christmastime he would indulge me by reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" over and over until I was satisfied, which could be up to six or seven readings at a time. He could do a really convincing Grinch voice that I absolutely loved.

Bill Daley, reporter: The book I'm thinking about this holiday season is a brand-new one, read the first time over a long, hot August weekend. It's "Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles, and the action begins in a Greenwich Village jazz joint on New Year's Eve, where 1938 momentously begins to unfold for young Katey Kontent. She's a heroine in the RKO sense of the word — pretty, talented, quick thinking, sassy, an ambitious career gal game for most anything. Towles, a principal at a Manhattan investment firm, charts the wanderings of Katey Kontent up and down New York's social ladder in those hungry last days of the Depression. The author, a fan of early 20th century culture, thoroughly immerses the reader in the period in this his first novel.

Readers have their holiday say

Christine Uliassi, Park Ridge: My father brought me a used copy of "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen for Christmas of 1958. I had just turned 13. Even though I now have several lovely copies, it remains my favorite.

Denise Guzzardo, Rockford: When I was in sixth grade, back in the '60s, I found a copy of "Harriet the Spy" under the Christmas tree from my Mother. I read this book at least six times. I purchased a notebook and starting writing down all of my deepest, darkest fears, concerns, hopes and wishes because of it. To this day I still do — nowadays they call it journaling.

Monique Parsons, Glencoe: Every Christmas vacation my parents and brother and I would pack ourselves into our station wagon and drive from our Southern California lemon farm to a mountain town in lower British Columbia to visit my grandmother. I read the entire way: Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie, Betty & Veronica. I read until it got too dark to see, and I'd look out the car window and see Christmas lights shining off the snow. My Christmases were always bookended by murder and intrigue, girl gumshoes and meticulous British sleuths, and the comforting smell of hot coffee from my dad's thermos on the dashboard.

Maggie Pollard, Homer Glen: Several years ago, I was reading "The Power of Myth," the book version of Bill Moyers' interview with Joseph Campbell, for my senior English class. Worlds seem to open up with every page I read. While at my grandma's house for our annual cookie day in the days leading up to Christmas, I took a break (and) hunkered down in the living room with its wonderfully decorated tree, toy train and beautiful miniature Christmas village surrounding the tree. There I sat and read words on a page that changed my life.

Charlotte Lang, Coventry, Conn.: For Christmas one year I received a big illustrated copy of "Grimm's Fairy Tales." I think I was about 3 or 4. I loved this book. I loved it so much that I abandoned my dolls and I would dress the book up in costume; particularly, snow pants. It makes sense that I became a writer because even then books were my best friend. Merry Christmas!

Stuart Miller, Chicago: "The Golden Book of Christmas Tales" by Lillian Lewicki, with paintings by James Lewicki. I received this as a Christmas present not too long after it was published in about 1956. It is a delightful compendium of Christmas stories for children — how the robin got a red breast (fanning the flames of a fire in the Bethlehem manger to keep the sleeping Holy Family warm); how a fly and a spider protected the Holy Family on the flight into Egypt; the first Nativity scene created by St. Francis; and so on. But the illustrations are the star of the book, with their fine detail and beautiful colors — still striking all these years later and the reason I could never bring myself to part with it. Used copies are available online — it's still a perfect gift, especially for any child under 10.

Mary Ann Presman, Rockford: As an adult, I discovered Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" and have read it to my children, who are now adults, and gifted it to many family members and friends. It's a beautiful autobiographical story about a very young Capote's relationship with a beloved aunt in a household of other relatives "who knew better." The highlight of the story is the making of many fruitcakes — the acquiring of the ingredients, the mixing, the baking, and the eventual sending them off to their many friends and acquaintances. I still read it every year. Sometimes I am even inspired to make fruitcake, but mostly just to drink the whiskey that is an essential ingredient.

Marilyn Bolgioni, Arbor Vitae, Wis.: I recommend "A Cup of Christmas Tea" by Tom Hegg with illustrations by Warren Hanson. This book is special to me because the first time I read it I thought of my parents. It is a poem about youth versus the elderly and the recognition of the special love the elderly have for their children and family no matter what obstacles get in the way. All who have read this beautifully illustrated book know that it is a poem about a man going to visit his great-aunt at Christmastime. He is reluctant to visit because of her health and age but he does. He then realizes the amount of effort that his aunt went to in preparation for this greatly "wanted and needed" visit. I gave this book to my children in hopes that they will read it every year at Christmastime to their children and keep this special "Christmas spirit" alive.

Marilyn Ludwig, Downers Grove: "It was Christmas Eve. Big snowflakes fluttered slowly through the air like white feathers and made all of Heavenly Valley smooth and white and quiet and beautiful." That's the way "Nancy and Plum" by Betty MacDonald begins, and that's the way it ends — one year in the lives of the 10- and 8-year-old sisters, as they escape the clutches of terrible Mrs. Monday and find a happy home at last. It was a Christmas present from my mother in 1952, when I was nine, and I've read it to others and myself every year since. "Nancy and Plum" has it all: adventure, humor, pathos, cuddly animals and a feel-good ending that borders on fantasy. It's back in print, so enjoy!

Gwyneth Aubrey, Chicago: My favorite holiday season book, discovered during public school in the 1980s and read almost every year since, is Margot Benary-Isbert's "The Ark." It's a wonderful story of a family in post-war Germany, who suffered pain and loss throughout the war and are dealing with their lives as they have been changed, and learn to trust and feel hope again. No matter how bad my life is, I can read the adventures of Margret and the Lechows, and take some of the joy they feel during Christmas into my own life. The description of the Nativity scene, where a baby born in a stable seems so normal to them, is beautiful and heartbreaking. I recommend it highly.

Adrienne Varvil, DeKalb, Ill.: My all-time favorite Christmas book was introduced to me perhaps 15 or more years ago. I heard "A Cup of Christmas Tea" by Tom Hegg being read on the radio, and I had to pull off the road and have a good cry. It's a little story, about a middle-age person a little too busy to drop in and see an older lady relative for Christmas tea. I was that middle-age person, and someday very soon, I'll be the oldster. Makes me cry every time.